Social and academic intelligences: a multitrait–multimethod study of their crystallized and fluid characteristics

Abstract

Abstract The purposes of the present study were: (1) to replicate previous research on social intelligence that shows social intelligence to be multidimensional in nature and distinguishable from academic intelligence, (2) to extend prior research by assessing whether the crystallized/fluid distinction commonly discussed in the academic intelligence literature was applicable to the domain of social intelligence, and (3) to explore whether a hierarchical model of social and academic intelligences was consistent with the data. One hundred and sixty-nine university students completed verbal, pictorial and self-report measures of four constructs: social knowledge (hypothesized to reflect crystallized social intelligence), social inference (hypothesized to reflect fluid social intelligence), crystallized academic and fluid academic intelligences. In addition, other-report measures were collected for these constructs in this multitrait–multimethod study. Confirmatory factor analyses replicated previous research, documenting that the four trait constructs showed convergent and discriminant validities. Similar analyses also extended prior research by showing that the crystallized/fluid distinction might be applicable in the social intelligence domain (although the evidence was stronger for crystallized social intelligence than fluid social intelligence) and that a hierarchical model fits the data well.